It was a good day for the students of the Tokyo Tech Visionary Project class. The special invited speaker talked about social investing and shared her experiences in heading a social investment company. Social investing is defined as a way of investing that considers both the good of the society and the interests of investors. More than just making monetary profits, a social investing company also considers the positive impact of their investment to the society. It sounds like a very noble cause and the speaker, Ms. Satoko Kono, president of ARUN, a Social Investment Platform company in Japan gave her talk entitled the “Power of Social Investing” to students of Tokyo Tech.
She began the presentation by asking the students about their motivation, what made them do what they are doing now. She related this to her experience when they started their company ARUN. She recalled that during her stay in Cambodia from 1995-2005, she saw the potential of the people and investment opportunities, albeit the lack of confidence of the locals to start their own business ventures and their lack of capital resources. After coming back to Japan they started the company, ARUN which means “dawn” in Khmer language. ARUN aims to invest in social entrepreneurs in developing countries using funds capitalized by individuals and corporate partners in Japan. They have overseas office in Cambodia, India and a network spanning in many other countries around the world. In her talk, she explained the general structure of social investment and the relationship of its three main components, namely: the social enterprise, the social investment organization, and the investor or the philanthropist. For their operations to be sustainable, both the social returns and business returns are carefully considered.
Ms. Kono shared their experiences as social investors in their business ventures in India. She talked about BookMyBai, a platform to hire maids in India that created quality employment opportunities in rural Indian household, alleviating poverty while also considering the welfare and rights of the workers and another investment, Stellapps Technologies, a startup company in India that applies IoT (internet of things) and Big Data in managing and digitization of the supply chain of dairy farms. These projects, among others in their portfolio has changed the society and lives of the people for the better. However, ARUN recognizes that in all of these, the entrepreneurs plays the biggest role in the success of social investment so they provide support as much as they could working closely with them in every step of the way.
It is not without failures and disappointments, Ms. Kono stressed. ARUN has had its shares of ups and downs but like the meaning of its name, there is always the hope and promise of a new day, new venture. But going forward, they want to create a new culture together and harnessing more the potential of social investment. With this, she ended her presentation with a very inspirational note. It can be said that after the talk, the students became more informed about social investing and they were given a chance to ask questions to the speaker. Ms. Kono was very eloquent and she eagerly answered all questions from the curious minds of the Tokyo Tech students.
The talk was not only attended by the students enrolled in the class, but there were some Tokyo Tech students that came to learn more about social investing. It was a very enlightening and informative talk. As what was said in the beginning, it was really a good day for the students.
Written by: E.M. Andrews